There is a conflict between the interests of privacy and the ability of law enforcement to intercept the communications of criminal targets. Yet interception technology is not without its own risks -- it is intended to be used only by authorized parties for lawful interception, but may also be abused by unauthorized individuals.

This talk will focus on the technical risks of interception technology and discuss the wisdom of standardizing protocols and technologies to facilitate interception. This is a tricky topic, because one must balance the benefits and risks of privacy versus interception for lawful purposes. We will attempt to stay within the technical realm as opposed to the politics of interception.

About the Presenter
Jeff Schiller received his S.B. in Electrical Engineering from MIT in 1979. As MIT Network Manager, he has overseen the MIT Campus Computer Network since its inception in 1984. Prior to his work in the Network Group, he maintained MIT's Multics timesharing system during the ARPANet TCP/IP conversion. Jeff is an author of MIT's Kerberos Authentication system. From 1994 through 2003, he was the Internet Engineering Steering Group's Area Director for Security, responsible for overseeing security-related Working Groups of the IETF. He was responsible for releasing a U.S. legal freeware version of the popular PGP encryption program.

Jeff is also responsible for the development and deployment of an X.509-based Public Key Infrastructure at MIT. He is the technical lead for the new Higher Education Certifying Authority being operated by the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking, and a founding member of the Steering Group of NEARnet, now part of Level3.